If there’s one thing we are good at in this country it is over-acting. Or over-dramatizing. Or over-reacting. Shakespeare reckoned all the world’s a stage. In this corner of the world it’s a soap opera.
Just look at the reactions to this election. Now in some countries people say “Hey, we lost. Let’s re-group. Let’s adjust.”
Here we’ve got celebrities threatening to slash their wrists. We’ve got actresses offering oral sex to people who voted their way. Castration for those who did not. (Guys, make sure you get in the right line.) We’ve got people searching for desert islands to flee to. We’ve got families spurning members, cancelling Thanksgiving dinners and weddings.
Madonna’s reaction was “It felt like someone died.” A lot of women voted for him. She told the world “Women hate women.” Wow. She says she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since the election.
She set herself up for a painful kickback. She said she was ashamed to be an American. Somebody cracked “We’re ashamed you are too.”
Demonstrators held up signs that told voters “Your vote was a hate crime!” Some protestors called for Trump’s daughter or wife to be raped. Some called for armed violence. Assorted voices on the losing side predicted brownshirts goose-stepping down Pennsylvania Avenue come January. (Some of those voices were in the middle of riots, by the way. They tore themselves away from bashing and torching to speak to the cameras. About the violence that was sure to come from the new president after the inauguration.)
Michael Moore reminded us that 78 years ago was Kristallnacht. “The night the elected party in Germany went on a rampage and began The Final Solution.” Think about that. In the 1 to 10 scale of over-reacting I give Michael a 33. A million times I have told him to not exaggerate.
I hope our acting schools are collecting videos from the internet of folks reacting to Hillary’s defeat. They can use them to teach future thespians how to wail. Gnash teeth, theirs and others. Bash heads against walls. Ditto. Pull out most of their hair. Roll on the floor. And scream.
“Students, welcome to Blubber and Moan 101. You will notice our classroom floor is a big mattress. For your thrashing about. And our walls are padded. The university built this as a safe space for Hillary supporters after the last election.”
And threats! Demonstrators screaming that people will have to die, die, die! During the next four years of resistance to the new regime. They didn’t specify which side would provide the dead people. Wait a minute. I just read the placard of one demonstrator. “Our lives begin to end…”
YouTube features many videos of children weeping and wailing that their country is now going to be destroyed. Destroyed? Now where do you suppose they got that idea? I guess from Michael Moore. Maybe we should raise his score to 43.
Name calling. We deserve gold medals in this. For spitting out names for people with different opinions than us. We need an app for this. We could just point our phone at somebody. The screen would shout RACIST!!! Or MISOGYNIST!!!! Or HOMOPHOBE!! WOMAN HATER! I slipped the last one in for a good reason: Most of the people who scream “Misogynist!” don’t know what it means. But to them it sounds evil.
The Italians think they know how to over-act. They flap and flutter, swear and weep. That’s when they lose at Scrabble. The French think they are world champs at rage. They will fling more sneers and insults at you than Amazon’s got books.
But I think we are the champs. We should win the Oscar in this. And if we don’t…I’m going to chug-a-lug Drano, slit my throat and leave the country.
From Tom…as in Morgan.
Find Tom on Facebook. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com.